Enphase Energy surpasses 500,000 units shipped

PETALUMA, USA: Enphase Energy, the global leader in solar microinverter systems, announced that it has shipped more than 500,000 microinverters to date and plans to triple production capacity in 2011 to meet accelerating demand within residential and commercial solar projects.

“The pace at which Enphase Microinverters are gaining traction is substantially altering the makeup of today’s solar market,” said Paul Nahi, CEO of Enphase Energy. “Not only are we shipping more inverters than any other company in the world, but we’re also actively monitoring more of them through our monitoring service, Enlighten. This is revolutionizing the way solar systems are being sold, installed and managed.”

Enphase’s unique approach to solar inverters utilizes design and manufacturing approaches more commonly seen in the high tech electronics industry. For example, Enphase Microinverters are digitally controlled by a custom semiconductor chip, which also provides built-in monitoring and networking capabilities.

“By embracing similar manufacturing and supply chain practices, Enphase is in a position to benefit from the cost-reduction and high-volume manufacturing advantages also enjoyed by the world’s top electronics companies,” said Greg Sheppard, chief research officer for IHS iSuppli, a research firm tracking photovoltaic supply chain performance.

“Enphase is one of our fastest growing customers,” said EC Sykes, president of Flextronics Industrial. “Our global network of world-class manufacturing sites and complex manufacturing capabilities enable us to scale and support Enphase’s steep growth within the solar industry.”

Enphase’s growth was also recently cited in an analysis by Stifel Financial Corp., a full-service regional brokerage and investment bank, as picking up substantial market share in California solar installations.

The analysis of over 74,000 solar project applications recorded in the California Solar Initiative (CSI) database reveal Enphase reached over 13 percent market share in 2010 residential installations up to 10kW, up from 5.3 percent in 2009. Results also show growth in commercial systems ranging from 10-100kW, with Enphase capturing 9.3 percent in 2010, up from 3 percent in 2009.